Yiddish word of the day!

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16 Oct 2021, 11:40 am

I've long been fascinated by Yiddish, even being a non-Jew, purely based on the sound of it, and the often very special words that seem to be so uniquely apt to unusual circumstances.

Here's a new one for me:

"luftmensch"
(“to disregard the practical matters of life”, literally “to live on air and love”)

What are your faves?

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kraftiekortie
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16 Oct 2021, 1:26 pm

Oy Vey!

I’m Yiddish on my mother’s side.

naturalplastic
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16 Oct 2021, 3:25 pm

Cool term.

Can see the kinship to the words "Lufthansa", and to "Luftwaffe". All three have to do with flight.

Despite being Gentile I have picked up some Yiddish here and there.

Mom used curse the "mimzers" on the road. A mimzer is an old person who drives abnormally slowly, and blocks traffic in your lane.

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16 Oct 2021, 4:32 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

Luft is air and is cognate with lift in English.

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16 Oct 2021, 5:44 pm

chutzpah (nerve/guts/balls)

schlemiel (inept person)

meshugge (crazy) and meshuggener/ meshuggeneh (crazy man/ woman)

nudnik (person who is a PITA)

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16 Oct 2021, 10:05 pm

bupkes (nothing)

Me Too!! ! Sometimes, it is absolutely hilarious!!

A fakakta is a thing, object or person that is completely messed up.

It is not working as it should be, or maybe it should not have been working from the start.

This Yiddish term is the perfect slang for anything that is negative. Your house is falling apart? It’s “fakakta”. Your kid likes eating worms? He’s “fakakta”. You just lost your job, your partner left you and you got kicked out of your house? Well, your life is “fakakta”. It almost reminds me of "F'd up", but in Yiddish, it's funny and not so offensive.

“Fakakta” is one of the most used cuss terms in the Yiddish language.

Last edited by RightGalaxy on 16 Oct 2021, 10:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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16 Oct 2021, 10:16 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:

Oy Vey!

I’m Yiddish on my mother’s side.

Oy Gevalt!

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17 Oct 2021, 10:49 am

Bubbe - Grandmother, Great Grandmother
Kvetch - The act of complaining, A person who complains too much
Schmear - A spread on food. “Bagel with schmear”
Mensch - An all around good person
Putz - A clueless, stupid person
Schmuck - a**hole
Tuches - Ass(part of the body, not personality)
Schvartze - Yiddish version of the N-Word

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Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 17 Oct 2021, 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

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17 Oct 2021, 10:50 am

Geshtunkinneh: The state of being “stinking drunk”.

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17 Oct 2021, 11:05 am

I always enjoyed punim for face, or I think like a nice face, a cute face? There's a song where people sing about putting pudding in the punim - I like those words.

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17 Oct 2021, 5:16 pm

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